Celebration of Academics and Soccer

The Santa Clara Youth Soccer League and FC Gold Pride Womens Professional Soccer Team hosted about 90 student-athlete soccer players and their families at the 2008-09 Scholar Athlete Awards Ceremony on Sunday, February 8th at the SC Sporting Clubhouse.

SCYSL President, Tino Silva welcomed everyone to the event, then congratulated all the kids for their academic achievements. Tino reminded the kids and parents of the importance to maintain good grades. FC Gold Pride General Manager Ilisa Kessler and Assistant Coach Sissi reinforced the importance to maintain good grades in school while playing soccer. Tino, Demitri Cacoyannis/SCYSL VP, and Sissi then handed out awards to all the kids, then the night ended with a fun raffle of some FC Gold Pride merchandise and some soccer balls.

Every season, we highlight the importance of education within our soccer community, and celebrate the success of our student athletes off the field through the SCYSL Scholar Athlete Award. Improving one’s soccer game is fun and rewarding, but of more importance is the need to have a strong academic foundation.

Our league launched the Scholar Athlete Program years ago to recognize those players in our league that receive academic honors (B average or higher) during the playing season. The program is open to all SCYSL players from the kindergartner grade through high school. Players recognized as Scholar Athletes will receive a medal, certificate and a bumper sticker during a ceremony to recognize each student-athlete.

We want to thank Ilisa, Sissi and Ken from FC Gold Pride for supporting and joining us at the event, and for all the kids for achieving a high standard of academic success, and all the parents for the support! Check-out all the photos online!